Making waves: in conversation with Martha Birtles Before coming to Oxford, Martha Birtles (English, 2018) would not have described herself as sporty. She would occasionally do some yoga or go on a run, but she had never rowed. That all changed in Fresher’s Week, when for the first time Martha discovered the pull of rowing thanks to Mansfield College Boat Club (MCBC). Francesca Rigby, Communications Assistant, finds out more.
Martha quickly excelled at rowing through 2019 and by her second year she was training with the Oxford women’s development squad, with her sights firmly set on making the women’s first boat for the 2020 Boat Race. But the journey was far from plain sailing. Just two weeks before the race, the pandemic led to it being cancelled. Despite the disappointment, Martha wasn’t deterred by the challenges of that exceptionally difficult year. The will-power she needed to continue training brought her reward: on April 4 2021, she rowed in seat five of Oxford University women’s first boat against Cambridge. Mastering any sport requires dedication, and rowing is no exception. Adjusting to an intense training schedule packed with early-morning outings, all too often in adverse weather conditions, can be harsh. Most who have tried rowing would agree – those 6am starts are gruelling. Yet Martha has no plans on stopping just yet. As we chat over Zoom, she tells me that her biggest challenge was not only adapting to the intense physical stresses of a rower’s life, but also overcoming the mental barriers: making herself believe that she deserved a place in the boat. Several of the women’s squad possessed an array of rowing accolades, including international records, so Martha was worried her teammates believed she had skipped many hard years of training, and was merely an imposter who had struck lucky.
The team kept at it, though, participating in online training sessions, including live ‘erging’ (competing with each other using ergometers), in order to retain a sense of community. While it wasn’t the same as being on the water together, Martha is convinced that going through such an experience means that she can now face anything. Reuniting with the team later in the year was all the more exciting. In the run-up to the 2021 Boat Race, the squad lived together in Ely, the location for the race. Living in ‘enemy territory’ felt quite lonely, and it was hard to imagine an existence beyond rowing, sleeping and eating. Nerves ran high, but the team looked after each other. The symbiosis that they formed, the profound sense of trust and camaraderie that they nurtured, kept spirits high, making the team strong and building life-long friendships. Losing to Cambridge in the Boat Race was, Martha explains, a dizzying experience. First of all, she wept. She couldn’t bear to hear the word ‘proud’ from friends and family. The day got tougher when they watched the men’s boat lose. It was a time of deep reflection. Martha recalls asking herself what the last two years of training were all for. Two years of her life seemed to have gone in less than 20 minutes.
Joining the squad, then, was at first an intimidating experience. The standards were dauntingly high, and Martha’s teammates were such a diverse group of people – and were not necessarily women whom she would have expected to befriend. Yet the sheer amount of time the team spent together radically altered her perspective. Going through the highs and lows of training together meant that they developed a huge amount of trust in one another. Martha describes her relationship with the team as sibling-like: what mattered most was that all the women would gladly put themselves on the line for each other. Put frankly, there’s no room for selfishness on an eight-person boat. The team’s bond strengthened further when training shifted from water to dry land during lockdown. Training in isolation, Martha explains, was horrendous. Despite the hours being more flexible (she was glad to avoid some of those early mornings), staying motivated on a stationary rowing machine was particularly difficult.
‘... her biggest challenge was not only adapting to the intense physical stresses of a rower’s life, but also overcoming the mental barriers: making herself believe that she deserved a place in the boat.’
Time has helped heal the wound, but there is still a sense of grief: not for the loss of the race, but for the end of a formative, momentous era – both at Mansfield and with Oxford University Women’s Boat Club (OUWBC).
Photography by Row360 and the BR company.
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